In this episode, I unpack the lessons from “Give to Grow” by Mo Bunnell.
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Full Transcript:
I wake up every morning looking to help my friends succeed and some of them just happen to be clients. That’s the mindset you want. You’re going to help your current and future friends succeed. Some will end up being clients and some won’t, but overall you’ll win far more work than others and you’ll do it in ways that helps everyone win. This is Stacking Knowledge. I’m Mickey Mellen and that was a little bit from Mo Bunnell’s book Give to Grow. My friend Amy recommended it to me a while back. It was a fantastic read. Remind me a lot of the classic book The Go Giver.
But this wasn’t a fable like the Go-Giver was. This was more tactical. So let’s get into some tactics here. So he starts off saying why I realized relationships are the key. He says relationships are the foundation of a long-term business success for two reasons. One is giving is the fastest way to build relationships. And two, no matter what is happening, it is always your move to give in a meaningful way. And so he says further in this first chapter here, says, quote, many people think getting great at growth is about making themselves successful.
But a deeper meaning comes from making others successful. And then he gets into a lot in chapter two, he talks about doing the work versus winning the work. And this is something a lot of us struggle with, especially in smaller agencies or freelancers. You have to do the work, you also have to put in the time to win the work, to go after and chase new work. And it’s an interesting, there’s really two problems with that. One is kind of the feast and famine a lot of people have. If they’re doing so much work, they don’t have time to go win the work. And then when they’re quiet, then they try to go in the work. And when they get it, they switch to doing. And you gotta kind of be doing both all the time.
But there’s also two different approaches to be taken. The way you do the work is very different from how you win the work. And a lot of people try to do it the same way. Like, here’s the thing I’m good at. And so they go, here’s the thing I’m good at. But that’s a little different than what happens. ⁓ He also says in the second chapter, says, quote, your clients hate to be sold to, but they love to buy. They’re coming for a solution. They want to buy your solution. You don’t want to be selling to them. It can get icky there. But they do want to buy what you have. So framing it the right way can make a big difference. ⁓
So chapter three, gets born to doing the work versus winning the work. He says very clearly, says quote, one more time, not a little different, completely different, they’re exact opposites. He says here’s what happens if you use your doing the work skills to win the work, it won’t work. And then he has that quote from the beginning about helping your client succeed and really that makes a big difference there. He gets next into chapter four, into relationship success.
He says, relationship success isn’t random. He talks about Adam Grant and Adam’s awesome book, Give and Take, quite a bit in this chapter, with the three types of people that Adam talks about in Give and Take. There’s takers who are selfish, trying to take as much as possible. There’s matchers who try to be fair, negotiating in equal trade in each exchange. And then givers who act generously, trying to give every chance they can. And so he kind of talks about the differences between the takers, the matchers, and the givers. And Give and Take really digs into that a lot, where givers tend to end up making the least money and the most money. Like they tend to be…
the best of both ends. you give generously in a fair way.” And so he says, strategic givers help others and do so in a way that helps themselves. When you focus on relationships, growth isn’t random, it’s reliable. And so yeah, kind of, kind of as he’s getting into the book here, you know, he says at the end of this chapter, says, give to grow means strategically and consistently giving so you can exponentially grow your impact over time. He talks about performance levels. He doesn’t get a lot into this, or I don’t get a lot into it here, at least in chapter five, but he’s talking about how top performers at companies
don’t make like 50 % more bring in know twice as much revenue someone else they generally achieve 10 times X or more than the average performer so it’s not they’re doing 10 times more than the worst performer they’re doing 10 times more than the average performance just outperforming everyone and he posits that giving the grow is the way to do it so he’ll he’ll give a lot of examples here and again it gets kind of tactical so we’ll get into that in chapter 6 he kind of pauses and says just go do this right now go reach out to someone you haven’t talked to in a while he says here’s the the six steps he says
First, think of someone you’ve been wanting to reach out to. Open a new email. Type some version of this. The example here is, hey Jonathan, it’s been a long time. Would love to hear what’s going on in your world. Maybe I can find some ways to be helpful. Are you free Thursday at two? Can’t wait to share what’s going on with the family. That’s it. Press send. Don’t overthink it. And yeah, that’s all there is really to it there. Section two, he gets into the lies. There’s a lot of lies people tell themselves about winning the work, things they can’t do. The section here, the next few chapters are, I can’t do that.
I don’t know what to do. I might do it wrong. I’m too busy or I’m going to look bad.” And so he kind of breaks down each of those one at a time. Again, the book gets into this a lot. ⁓ But he says, for I can’t do that, he says, others don’t witness the work top performers put in over years and decades to become great. So they incorrectly assume they were born with it. You know, we kind of see that. Other people are awesome and you don’t see all the stuff behind the scenes. You just think they’re just great. They have this gift. I don’t have the gift. That’s what it is. But they’re putting in the work over the years, over the decades to make it happen. And he says in this chapter also,
practice doesn’t make perfection, practice makes progress. And so just keep doing it. You’re never gonna get perfect, but you’re gonna get better and better all the time. The next chapter he talks about, I don’t know what to do. And so he says, here’s the simple solution to the lie, I don’t know what to do, no matter how it presents itself. He says, quote, it’s always your move and there’s always a way to be helpful. He relates it to tennis, you kind of talking about how you’re expecting a volley. You hit it, they hit it back, but he sees it more like serving. You keep serving, sometimes they’ll hit it back, sometimes they won’t. The quote from the book here, he says, quote,
I now realize I need to think of client outreach like I’m practicing my serve with a tennis pro, not volleying back and forth. I just have to keep serving up value regardless of if they hit a particular ball back to me or not. The client wants a helpful conversation and it’s your responsibility to offer it to them. And then he also says disconnect yourself from the outcome and focus on what’s in your control. So just keep offering value and yeah, sometimes it’ll work, sometimes it won’t, but if you just keep offering value, that’s just not a bad way to go. The next chapter he titles, I Might Do It Wrong, he says people drastically overestimate
how many people they need to ask to get help while drastically underestimating how much help they’ll get. He says this, remember when asking for help, the deepest relationships are mutually beneficial. We’ve covered this in other books where it feels kind of weird to ask for help sometimes, but a lot of times asking for help can build relationships. Benjamin Franklin famously built some big relationships with adversaries by asking to borrow a book, reading the book, and then sending it back with this great note saying how informative it was, how helpful it was, how gracious he was to receive it, and it built a relationship. Or,
Another story that may or may not be true about a wealthy family had some poor neighbors move in next door and so the mother of the wealthy family went over to borrow a cup of sugar from time to time. The daughter said, why are you borrowing sugar? Because we have plenty of sugar here. You don’t need to do that. But she says, no, no. So they’re willing to then ask for help back when they need it, trying to build that relationship both ways. So he says, yeah, the deepest relationships are mutually beneficial. So don’t be afraid to ask for help. It can actually work out well. The next one, chapter 10, the issue here is I’m too busy.
And he says, the best time to grow is when you’re busiest. The number one thing that signals your expertise is the scarcity of your time. And you should leverage being busy to help, not hurt your future self. And again, like I talked about earlier, a lot of people when they get so busy doing the work, they’re saying, well, I don’t have time to go network and meet folks and offer value and win business. I gotta just do the work. And then when it dries up, then they go try to do it it becomes a bad cycle. So yeah, the best time to grow is when you’re busiest. If you can keep it all humming, it can work well. And then the last issue he talks about here is I’m going to look bad.
He says, you’re rarely rejected in the doing of the work and you need to get used to rejection in winning the work. So yeah, once you’ve landed a client, you don’t get rejected a lot in doing the work. You will have some back and forth, but you have it. But winning the work, you will get rejected. So mean, that’s okay. You don’t need to take that too seriously. I you don’t want to harass people. Certainly if you get turned down, you get turned down. But just, yeah, always keep their best interest in mind. Let’s see, what does he say here? He says, yeah, 10X thinking means you always have the other person’s best interest in mind.
They’ll feel your true intent and your wording doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect. Like I didn’t read that sentence absolutely perfect, but yeah. Your wording doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect. Just if you’re offering great value with their best interest in mind, that’s going to work well. You’re not going to look bad. The next section he talks about is the gifts. He says all these gifts engage the client throughout the relationship with their best interest in mind, and then everyone wins. So some of the gifts, the first one is focus on engagement. He says, quote, focus on your client’s engagement so you can interact with the client in a way they love and they’d love to continue.
He says focusing on engagement is a powerful differentiator and that’s amazing, but it’s true. We see that a lot. If you actually can focus and be honed in on someone, that sets you apart right there. You know, so you’d always be thinking about what you can do there. He’s another quote in here. I love this little line in here. He says, quote, showing someone attention is one of the most meaningful things you can do. Showing someone attention is one of the most meaningful things you can do. Again, it’s one of those things that should not be a big deal because we should all be doing that. But again, showing genuine focused attention is a rare thing. So if you can do that,
It makes a big difference to everyone you talk to. He also says in here, conversations with your clients should be similar to how you treat a friend. An enjoyable and productive two-way conversation where each side emerges a little more energized and a little better off. So I love that too. We try with our clients to have more conversations, less us talking to them and more talking with them. We all come out of it a little bit better for it. In talking about what clients might need, he said there’s three main things clients might need from you in a given interaction. They might need technical support,
Emotional support or strategic ideas and you got to kind of be able to feel that out some people are better Naturally feeling that out than others but just be aware that sometimes they want technical advice Just how do I how do I make this thing click sometimes emotional support? They’re just kind of drained from talking to Facebook support, you know dealing with the the stuff that you can’t really help with but helping there and then strategic ideas Let’s think of bigger picture things to move things forward He also says in this chapter quote the more deeply someone shares with you the more they want to use you
Read the rooms you enter it so you can toggle the right mode of support. Again, are you technical support, emotional support, strategic? Be a friend. Let’s see, he also talks about celebrating progress. This is something I’m pretty bad about. ⁓ But just, yeah, he says, research that Teresa Amable and Stephen Kramer studied tens of thousands of knowledge workers and found one thing correlated to both productivity and happiness, and that was people that celebrated incremental progress. And so yeah, celebrating progress is a huge thing. Celebrate with your clients, with your team, like.
Be happy about that stuff and it makes a big difference. Yeah, because both for productivity and for happiness. The next chapter he says quote, the title is fall in love with their problem. The main quote here is fall in love with their problem so you can find a meaningful way to help them. He says quote, clients feel when they’re being sold to and they also feel when someone’s digging in and trying to understand the problem. How you approach asking questions and listening in your meetings is one of the biggest differentiators you can have. So really again, falling in love with their problem and really knowing what’s happening. They talk about, I’ve mentioned down here before, looping for understanding, kind of like
Reciting what someone not reciting but rephrasing I guess what someone says to you about their problem making sure you really understand it And so he says that here he says quote What do I need next to be able to paraphrase their problem back to them and test my understanding of the situation? what do you need to do next to understand their situation? What do you need to ask them to make sure you have it and just being supportive as you listen? He says paraphrasing earns you the right to continue the client needs to know you get it This doesn’t happen through head nods active listening or mental telepathy. You have to use your words for them to get
that you get it. The gift of understanding has to be said to be received. I love that. The gift of understanding has to be said to be received. There’s a place for head nods and active listening and maybe not mental telepathy, but most of those are valuable in some way, to really know you get it, you need to say it back to them in your own words. you repeat what they say verbatim, that helps, but if you can rephrase it in your own words and it’s still accurate, they really know you get it. He also says here, the gift of understanding is so powerful. He talks more about that to wrap up this chapter. He says,
quote, there’s a great irony in all this work you’ve done to become an expert advisor and professional. What’s in your big brain is unique. Your solutions are the best there is, but the client doesn’t want your broad-based knowledge that results in what feels like a cookie cutter solution. They don’t want your broad knowledge that says, yep, I’ve seen your problem before. Here’s the answer. Let’s go. Even if it’s right, you need to kind of frame it, really understand the problem, make them know you really get it. And you may still apply kind of the cookie cutter thing. If that’s something you’ve done before, you know it’ll work, but just be careful of that. Chapter 14 is giving the experience of working with you.
He just offers some ideas there just to give them little samples of how to work with you and that can be a good way to start a relationship. Chapter 15, he says, always make a recommendation. You know, you should ask for escalating commitments. There’s ways to always be offering something else. You can say things like, would it be helpful if, offer questions like that to try to go further. And then again, escalating commitments can be good. Just saying, hey, instead of this big project, let’s start with a small project. Kind of goes back to the previous chapter with giving the experience of working with you. You know, give a little bit to try out, see how it goes and kind of build out from there.
Section four is the impact. He talks about really what this what’s gonna make a difference here Chapter 16 is succeed in the moment He says quote every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become says you have agency you are in control Next he talks about succeeding in the short term He says the big important things in life are projects that never end and that’s an important one, too We always want to see the end of the road, but the big the big important things don’t end and that’s okay, you
with my family, with my business, things like that. I’m always wanting to improve them, make them better, serve better, but I’m never gonna get to like, hey, we did it, we’re done. Like you always have to keep going. He also said something else in this chapter that he was speaking directly to me. He says, quote, you need to prioritize list of relationships because if you try to keep up with everyone, you’ll keep up with no one. And I’m pretty bad about that. I use the Dex system, the D-E-X, getdex.com. So just a neat system to remind you who to stay in touch with. And I have it so loaded up with people that.
It’s often overwhelming and they don’t do it. If you can narrow it down a bit more, kind like we talked about in David Ackert’s, the short list I did some episodes ago, it can make a big difference, really be focused in there. And then as he’s kind of wrapping things up here, he talks about succeeding in the long term. So there’s three levels of a top performer. It’s growing a book of business. That’s kind of the first one, that 10x performer that has the bigger book of business than anyone, but then growing a team under them and then growing at scale. And so he says, elite top performers don’t stop when they build their own book of business. Some do, and you can.
Do fine, though, you make a good living, but elite top performers keep going. After they’ve built that big book of business, then they start growing a team around them, and then they grow at scale, where they’re doing less of the work and more of building the team. He talks about cutting things to climb, like you have to always be subtracting work out of your day just to have more time to do the right things. He says, autopilot is your enemy. You have to remind yourself to subtract or you won’t do it. So you’re not going to automatically cut things out of your life to free up your time. You need to focus on what to subtract to do it.
And then he wraps up this chapter talking about thinking in bets, a lot about Annie Duke. I’ve talked about her on here quite a bit. Love her stuff. ⁓ He says it here, quote, life’s more like poker than chess because of randomness. In poker, you can have a great hand, bet it all and lose. And a fool can win even with a bad hand. So he talks about, again, yeah, we think business is like chess. Like we’re gonna make the right moves and win every time and you won’t. You’ll make the wrong moves and win. You’ll make the right moves and lose. So you gotta pay attention to what the right move was. Again, it’s more about the.
Decision you made then the outcome necessarily if it was a good decision that just didn’t work out It was still a good decision and likewise you made a bad decision happy to get lucky It’s still a bad decision and understanding that’s tough and that’s Annie Duke talks about a lot in her books And it’s just a fantastic viewpoint to take and she talks about it in in poker specifically You know the example she gives is if you’re dealt you’re playing poker and you get two aces to start Well, you’re gonna stay in what if you eventually lose that hand is the lesson that if I get two aces I’m gonna fold immediately next time like I sure hope not like that would be a
bad decision, but you made a good decision, you lost the hand, it was still a good decision. So keeping decisions and outcomes separate ⁓ are different and important to keep separate there too. And then at the end he just kind of gives the rah-rah to wrap things up there. He says, this is bigger than you think. And I’ll kind of close on his final words from the book here. He says, wake up every day helping your friends succeed, give to grow, you’ll have a bigger impact than you could ever imagine.
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